Within
by Verity
Summary: It's been a funky time. Willow between season 7 & season 8.  Willow/Xander, Willow/Aluwyn, Willow/Tara, Willow/Kennedy


**Buffy:** Okay. Hey, speaking of where the hell have you been...  
><strong>Willow:<strong> Yeah, it's been a funky time.  
>- "The Long Way Home Part 3"<p>

Pairings: Willow/Xander, Willow/Aluwyn, Willow/Kennedy, Willow/Tara  
><span>Words:<span> ~2400  
><span>Notes:<span> This story is definitely fanfic for Season 8 proper, as opposed to BtVS. If you haven't read Season 8, I'd recommend looking at the wiki articles for Aluwyn/Saga Vasuki and The Long Way Home(arc), otherwise you'll be _very_ confused.  
><span>Disclaimer:<span> This story incorporates dialogue from BtVS ("Chosen") and the Season 8 comics ("The Long Way Home, Part 3" and "Willow: Goddesses and Monsters"). All credit goes to Joss Whedon for the dialogue I borrowed.  
><span>Thanks<span>: to **parcae_lj** for the prompt "Willow and Xander in Africa," to **angearia** and **bobthemole** for helping me plot it all out oh-so-patiently way back in August, and again to **angearia** for a speedy betaread.

**- 10 -**

The world moves, and she stands still.

**- 11 -**

It's half past six in the morning in Nairobi, and surprisingly cool. It's not the first time Willow has been to Africa, but she always forgets for a moment that she's about to arrive in Xander's apartment in urban Nairobi instead of some picturesque savannah. She plops out of the air onto his couch with a pronounced "whump!" and he startles awake beside her.

"Will?" Xander sounds groggy and confused.

Glancing around, she observes the beer cans and stack of DVDs on the coffee table and draws her conclusions. "Wild night, huh? I just thought I'd drop by, see how you were doing in the land of lions and tigers and all that. Although, not so many lions and tigers around here, I'm guessing."

"_Willow?_" All at once, he clasps her to him in a bear hug. She's too startled to pull away. He starts to loosen his hold on her once he notices she's gone rigid in his arms, but she takes a deep breath and returns the embrace. "No one's heard from you in months," Xander tells her. "I was worried. Ken said everything was okay, that you knew what you were doing, but I– but you're here and you've got all four limbs and you're looking good!"

"Beer goggles?" she teases him, and hugs him hard. "Of course I'm fine. I knew you'd worry, so I came to see you first."

"Me? Really?" He's beaming.

Willow elbows him. "You're my best friend. I missed you."

**- 9 -**

This is something she misses when she flies: the sense of the _journey_. Now she never has a sense of going anywhere – she is in one place, then another, in the space of a moment. No space at all.

She holds out her hand to touch the soft fall of the curtain one more time. It's still a few hours until dawn. Below her, Faith is leading a group of baby slayers home from an intensive raid. They look tuckered out. Chao-Ahn, bringing up the rear, is holding her arm funny.

Cold stone, under her other hand resting softly on the sill. Willow wishes this place felt like home. She checks her watch.

There's somewhere else she should go.

**- 12 -**

Xander has three Slayers with him in Nairobi, and he trains with them most mornings, as their schedules permit. The youngest is the daughter of professors at the University of Nairobi, the middle works for the Council to support her family, and the most senior is a rising star in Kenya's hip hop scene. The latter, Makena, hasn't turned up yet, but Wangai and Kioni are already hard at work pretending Xander is a Fyarl demon. Xander may not be the most erudite of Watchers, but he knows how not to get killed, and the girls respect that. Mostly.

It's strange to see him with his own life, so far away from Sunnydale, from all of them. She's been far away, too, but Xander is their _heart_. He's the heart of this group, too, she can tell, because he respects these girls and their power.

Kioni manages to land a solid hit and trip Xander up all at once, and she and Wangai both laugh cheerfully as he hits the ground. Willow looks away.

**- 8 -**

"I can't follow you up," Aluwyn says, as they float in the darkness.

She nods. "I'm ready now." She is. She knows what she's made of, how she works: the limits and the depths of her magic, her strength, herself.

"But you know how to find me."

"I do." She brushes Aluwyn's hand with her own. "I do."

Above, she's temporarily rendered sightless by the light: true light, even though she's still inside. The flowers and blades of grass around her shift in the breeze.

No Muffit here, now.

She's on her own.

**- 13 -**

Makena makes an appearance just before lunch, looking well-rested and ready to pick a fight about it if necessary. She's shorter than the other two girls, but more confident – she shakes Willow's hand firmly when Xander introduces them, and asks with undisguised interest about the health of her family and friends. It's only when Wangai and Kioni start inching toward their end of the training room that Willow catches onto the direction of her questions – it's _Xander_ they want to know about, _Xander's_family and friends who exist out there in the mysterious ether. And why wouldn't they? Hadn't they, she and Buffy and Xander, wanted to know about Giles, been intrigued and shocked by his decidedly unstuffy past?

Those days seem so long ago. Willow looks at Makena, sees her strength and youthful beauty, and thinks to herself: _I__unlocked__you.__I__gave__this__power__to__you.__I.__I.__I.__You__don't__know__what__you__are,__what__you've__become,__what__I've__made__you.__What's__ahead._

There's something wrong with her, that she can see nothing else.

**- 7 -**

"They'll need you, when it comes time to protect this universe. It's you they'll need to save them."

"_You_need me," she points out.

"Hmm," Aluwyn says. "Maybe so. We need each other." Aluwyn draws her into her serpentine embrace. "Without magic, we'll both disappear."

It's true.

Because, she knows now, magic? That's all that's within.

**- 14 -**

After lunch, Xander tidies up the training area, reviews patrolling assignments for the night with the Slayers (Makena has a gig but she'll team up with Kioni afterwards; Kioni and Wangai will cover most of downtown), and does some paperwork for the Council. "I think Andrew _likes_paperwork," he complains to Willow as he fills out some spreadsheet in Excel. "And I hear it's way less intense than what Giles used to have to fill out. Yikes."

"Yikes," she echoes, without really feeling it.

"_Magic_," he says disparagingly, tapping away at his keyboard. "You'd think they'd find ways to make this easier, but no!"

**- 6 -**

When Aluwyn touches her she can feel her skin gleaming, the magic inside her gathering, sighing, breathing, like a living thing within her. Her pleasure breaks in waves over her, through her; she dissolves and reassembles under Aluwyn's touch.

"This is what you deserve," Aluwyn tells her. "This is what you need. This is who you are."

She plucks every apple from every tree.

**- 15 -**

"So tell me," Xander says, as he rises to put their dishes in the sink after dinner. "I want to know where you were. Did you go – was it a place? Or–"

"Yes and no," she says, crossing the kitchen to stand by his side. "I went inside me. Inside my power. But I was in another dimension for a lot of it. Kinda hard to talk about. It was pretty trippy."

Xander puts an arm across her shoulder and hugs her again. "You're still the same old Will to me."

"Really?" She turns, looks toward him. "I need to know. I need you to see me. Tell me I'm the same."

He bends down, gazes into her eyes. Her breath catches in her throat.

**- 0.20 -**

_No__connections,__no__restrictions._She wipes away the vision of Tara, wipes away her tears.

This is why she's here, after all. It's the final place where she has to say goodbye, and start again.

She's finally got a glimpse of the path that lies ahead, and its twists and turns, the ones that have always lain within her, and the ones that she put into place.

Aluwyn is surprised by her return.

"I'll know if you lie."

"I always lie."

"That's how I'll know."

She needs someone like her to unravel everything.

**- 16 -**

"You came to me first." Xander touches her cheek. His face has a scar she doesn't remember, is crossed by the eyepatch she remembers all too well. "Not Kennedy. Not Buffy. Not Giles."

"No," she says. "I needed you. You know me best."

He tilts his head. A slow smile spreads across his face. "Crayon-breaky Willow? Smiley-face sweater Willow? Chair dance Willow?"

"Yes." She rests one hand on his hip. "You do."

Gently, he asks, "Did you get lost inside?"

"I don't know," she answers him.

"Willow." He touches her face again. "Willow. You're real. You're here."

"Yes," Willow says.

**- 4 -**

"You have to live _within_if you're to truly work the the wound," the freaky teal snake lady says.

"Wound?" she asks, even though she should probably be saying _Buzz__off,__snake__lady,__gotta__see__a__goddess__about__my__destiny__here._

But she won't say that. She knows already.

**- 17 -**

When they kiss, Willow can feel the earth beneath her, the hum of Nairobi around her, the warmth and familiarity of _Xander,__Xander,__Xander_tethering her to the earth.

"You're real. My Willow. You're real."

His words call Willow into being.

**- 3 -**

Afterward, she feels it calling, constantly. For years, she'd called to it, said: _do__this,__do__that,__do__everything__for__me_. This is the flip side, apparently. She doesn't know if it's good or bad. But she wants to find out.

She wants to go down deep. She wants to know what's inside.

(Yes, it's true. She's looking for Tara there. Her guide. Her goddess. Her talisman.)

She's standing in the field of flowers, now. It feels right. And, yes, maybe it's the most stereotypical lesbian witch power base she can imagine, but it feels like Tara, so it feels like home.

"The second level is you but it's still surface," says Muffit, who's guiding her now. "Being a fierce 'mo has nothing to do with your power. This is you relating to the outside world."

No shit, she thinks.

"We're going deeper than that."

**- 18 -**

Xander takes her to bed. They've never done this before, but it feels perfect, like nothing she could ever have imagined, even when she'd dreamed of this, oh, years and years ago. He takes his time undressing her, mouthing her breasts through her camisole until she begs for relief and he slips his hands beneath to caress her. "I'll kiss every inch of you," he promises. He's so happy, so joyful.

"I missed you so much," Willow says, and finds she's crying. True to his words, he kisses away her tears. "I need you, to see me, that there's a me, there's a Willow, I– "

"Sssh," he calms her. "I see you, I know you, I love you. You're safe, Will. You're real."

Willow's forgotten how amazing sex can be with someone you love, even without magic. Why did she let Xander go so far away? She gasps his name, "Xander," and then the wave of pleasure pulls her under. Down.

Within.

**- 2 -**

"You... are a goddess," says Kennedy.

"And you're a Slayer," she answers, smiling weakly. "Get this to Buffy."

After Kennedy goes, she sits there, panting for a moment. "Ha! That was nifty."

She can feel her magic inside, shifting, testing its bounds. Gleaming from within.

**- 19 -**

"Again, so soon?" Aluwyn says, appearing before her in stark relief against the darkness. "I'm honored."

"What?" she gasps, breathing heavily. There was a Xander and a bed and another continent and a - "Oh."

"I'm always here, darling. I come when you call." She smiles. "Or, I come when you come. You remember the deal. That's how you tap your power, get to what you are within."

**- 1 -**

She refuses to believe this is the natural order. She refuses to believe this is the way things work. If her baby is gone, if _Tara,__Tara,__Tara_, if there's no Tara, there's no world. Only the ugliness and darkness inside, and if that darkness can't give her anything, what's the use of it at all?

She needs a direction. She takes her shirt off, and she's taking off Tara, what remains of Tara, but the world is already nothing, and she can't lose any less. She breathes a map into creation.

She refuses to believe this is the natural order. No matter. She'll create an order of her own.

**- 0.05 -**

She slams back into her body with a gasp, to find Xander sighing with completion beneath her. "Xander," she says, bewildered.

"Willow," he says, caressing her with languid fingers. "Hey."

She kisses him, sadly. "I love you," she says, and buries her face in the crook of his neck.

In the morning, no one will remember she was here.

**- 0 -**

The power runs through her like an electrical current – sudden, sharp, unstoppable, burning up everything in its path, turning on all her lights. Later, they'll tell her that her eyes went dark, that she spoke in a tongue not her own. But all she can feel, right now, is that when she calls out – in her true voice, the one she's always hidden, the one so strange and bold no one will call it hers – the universe answers. It gives her Angel's soul and she puts it back inside him.

In this moment, she knows that if she asks with the right words, the universe can give her anything.

**- 21-**

Now that Amy's taken care of, she and Buffy have started catching up. They're hugging tightly and laughing when Xander comes in the door, and she can't help but smile. It's so good to see both of them, especially now that she's herself again. "Wait, what? A funny?" he asks.

She and Buffy keep giggling.

"There's funny bonhomie happening and I want in!" Xander continues.

Buffy rubs her face. "No.. ahh... ahh.. Girl thing."

"Girl thing? With girl parts? Now I really need to know!"

"Slow year, Xan?" Willow asks.

_Each numbered section corresponds to a card in the Major Arcana of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck (although I have chosen to use a different, although common, enumeration wherein VIII is Justice and IX is Strength). Fractions represent an inverse reading of the card._


End file.
